Counterpoint
by RedHawkeRevolver
Summary: An awkward double date. A meaningful step forward for Hawke and Fenris. F!HawkexFenris, AvelinexDonnic. One-shot for now. Rating may change if this turns into a two-shot.


_A/N: Some introspective fluff. Just a one-shot for now, but if the mood strikes me possibly a two-shot with a nice steamy romance scene. Thanks for reading!_

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Counterpoint

"Take a seat boys. We'll get the drinks." Hawke winked with a smile and gestured for Aveline to follow her.

Fenris nodded and sat at a table by the hearth. He picked a chair close to the fire. The heat of it on his back was soothing compared to the first bite of winter weather that had just started to emerge in Kirkwall. Donnic sat down next to him. The Hanged Man was more quiet than usual this evening. They sat in silence for a moment watching the women's backs as they walked over to the bar. Fenris would have preferred to enjoy the silence of his mansion, or better yet, the silence of Hawke's mansion, but she had asked him if they could join Aveline and Donnic tonight, so here he was.

"It was kind of you and Hawke to join us." Donnic tapped his fingers on the table nervously. His eyes moved over to the women again. "These things are always easier with friends, don't you agree?"

Fenris couldn't say if he agreed or not. "I can't say I have much experience with such things." He mumbled it more than spoke it. Tagging along on the horrible debacle at the Wounded Coast that initiated this 'thing' between Aveline and Donnic had been his first and only exposure to what seemed to pass for courting behavior; at least outside the fiction of Varric's stories.

"Oh, I don't know about that." Donnic responded. "You have the Champion of Kirkwall smiling and winking at you while she fetches you an ale. You must have more experience than you claim."

Fenris fondled the red cloth around his wrist. He buried down the remembered sensations of his one and only _experience_ with Hawke. Those memories held a bliss he was undeserving of. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Hawke and I are...complicated."

"Ha! _Women_ are complicated, friend." Donnic laughed good-naturedly. The man's easy and sincere way relaxed Fenris a bit. "But Hawke seems like the type of person who doesn't play those kinds of games. Like Aveline." The corners of the human's mouth turned up in a proud smile. "They're the kind of women you hope the Maker lets you _not_ be an ass around."

Fenris looked down at the token on his wrist with regret. _Too__ late_, he thought dejectedly.

xxxx

"Fenris and I are...complicated." Hawke couldn't say she appreciated Aveline asking 'how she and Fenris were doing' when this night was supposed to be about her and Donnic. She didn't appreciate it, but she had to admit to herself that she was glad to have a friend like Aveline who would ask regardless, knowing Hawke would let things fester inside her own head before she burdened others with her angst.

"Men are simple, Hawke. We complicate them." Aveline spoke with a measure of smug certainty. It was amusing that this new found certainty hadn't been present the whole time her friend had been trying to win the attentions of the guardsman waiting for his drink at a table with Fenris.

"That is surprisingly insightful for the woman who needed an entourage to help her woo someone."

"That's exactly my point. I over complicated things. I am fortunate it turned out for the best regardless." Aveline's reply seemed too self-satisfied by half in Hawke's opinion considering her own current state of romantic limbo.

Hawke sounded more annoyed than she intended when she replied. "So why did Fenris and I have to be here tonight? We had every intention of staying inside and reading by the fire. He hates the cold weather."

"Reading, huh?" Aveline replied skeptically.

"Oh don't start Aveline, you sound like Isabela. Do you have any idea how long it's taken me to get him to be comfortable doing that much with me again, after...well...you know, _after_." Hawke let her head fall forward onto her arms where they rested on the bar. A blur of awkward, painful moments flashed in front of her closed eyes; all the scenes from so many months of carrying the hurt and longing in her heart while trying to remain steadfast and supportive for Fenris and the fragile edges of his frayed psyche. He allowed her only so close since their first and only intimate night together, both emotionally and physically. And yet he remained. But so did she. All the time, nearly every day and practically every evening; each of them finding some excuse to be together, even though Hawke felt further apart from him now than the day they met. She lifted her head up slightly, only to let it fall with a thud onto the bar. A sound somewhere between a grunt and a sigh escaping her lips. "It's exhausting."

"What is?" Aveline asked. "Being in love?"

"Yes."

xxxx

"It's sort of...exhausting sometimes, you know?" Donnic let out a slow breath. "When you want someone to think well of you. Especially a woman."

This evening had only started but it was fast becoming far to introspective for Fenris's taste, especially since he was still very sober. He reluctantly admitted to himself that he was exactly that. Profoundly exhausted. He ran from her that night, exhausted by the assault of his buried memories. But then he ran right back to her, exhausted by thoughts of losing her. And then he exhausted himself further by keeping her and his feelings for her at the safest distance possible, while still being just close enough to bask in her presence. His own sick masochism was exhausting him. But not just that, it was his selfish sadism at lingering. Stringing her along with him down his path of self-loathing. Being inappropriately possessive with her and monopolizing her time, and then leaving her to her cold and empty bed every night just so he could return to his own cold and empty bed. He even found his guilt at torturing her like this exhausting.

Fenris surprised himself when he fell into easy commiseration with the guardsman. "I can understand what you mean. But I assure you Aveline thinks very highly of you. I should hope that much is already obvious." He was possibly the least equipped to be offering support to anyone, but it seemed like the appropriate response in this situation and Donnic appeared strangely comforted. The man smiled and nodded his head over to where the women were returning, balancing tankards and pitchers in their hands.

"They're coming. You're a good friend, Fenris. Hawke is a lucky woman."

xxxx

"Avenline is a very lucky woman, Donnic." Hawke was two ales too far to be shy about anything. She looked over at Fenris. All of their friends thought he never got drunk, no matter how much he consumed, but she knew better. Right now, he was two ales too far to stop her from saying anything embarrassing. So she continued. "You're exactly the kind of man every good woman should hope for."

Donnic looked down shyly into his drink and Aveline blushed. "That's kind of you to say Hawke, but I'm the lucky one."

No one else saw, but Hawke noticed Fenris cover a roll of his eyes by tipping his head forward, allowing his hair to fall in front of them. She almost laughed. She agreed, of course. These two love-sick fools had become increasingly nauseating over the course of the evening. Gazing longingly at each other. Covertly holding hands under the table. Exchanging innocent smiles. Hawke didn't know if it was bitterness or cynicism that made her want to vomit. It was possibly both.

Hawke caught Fenris's eyes while the happy couple wasn't looking. They exchanged their own look, half amusement, half annoyance. She smiled unconsciously at him. She cursed each of the two ales that put her past her limit when she realized Donnic had seen her do it.

"You know, Hawke, I should apologize to you for that first time we met here and I thought..." He rubbed the back of his neck in a nervous gesture. "...well, I thought you were interested in me." He followed the statement with an equally nervous chuckle.

"No harm done, Donnic." Hawke lifted her mug and finished her drink. "Like I said, every _good_ woman should hope for a man like you. 'Good' is something I am very much not. And besides, I prefer men that brood a little more. I'm a sucker for cold insolence." Fenris had his own drink to his lips when she said it and he promptly choked on it. Apparently this is what three ales too far did to her. Perhaps if she went for four, she'd forget that she immediately felt guilty for what she had just said.

xxxx

Fenris wiped ale and spit from his mouth with the back of his hand. He considered being upset at what Hawke had just said, but he knew she was three ales past being able to filter her words and besides that, it was all the truth.

While he and Hawke were too drunk and too deeply entrenched in their own morose relationship to care what others thought, it was clear that Aveline and Donnic were becoming uncomfortable. Aveline, however, was more used to Hawke's drunken banter so it was Donnic who finally broke the awkward silence.

"I've heard you sing and play a little, Hawke." He pointed to a lute propped up against a stool in the corner. "It's so quiet here tonight, why don't you give us a song?"

Hawke nodded and rose to get the abandoned instrument, but when she returned to the table, she handed it to Aveline. "Why don't you play, Aveline. We can do the first song you ever taught me."

Both Donnic and Fenris looked at Aveline in surprise. She snatched the lute away, clearly not prepared for Hawke revealing this information, but she started strumming anyway. Hawke explained as she sat back down. "It was Aveline who taught me how to play in the first place. On the crossing from Gwaren."

He didn't think it was possible, but Donnic's eyes widened even more than they had been all evening with obvious infatuation. Fenris wanted to roll his eyes again, but he resisted the urge. Just barely.

Aveline's tentative picking settled into the first notes of a familiar melody. It was a song Fenris had heard Hawke sing many times before. It was his favorite. He had even asked her to sing it for him once in a particularly weak moment of self-indulgence. He settled back in his chair as Aveline played and Hawke sang.

xxxx

Hawke tried to let her mind clear as she sang. She tried to focus on the fire. She tried to focus on Aveline's accompaniment. She tried to focus on anything besides her horrifyingly deep feelings for the elf sitting next to her. Not an easy task. She didn't know why she had foolishly suggested his favorite song. To torture him? It seemed to only be torturing her.

xxxx

It was torture listening to her. Watching her. Feeling her presence. He tried to look away. He tried to close his eyes but the warm and soothing comfort that was Hawke still filled all of his senses. The song was hauntingly beautiful. Just like her. When Aveline joined her, singing in counterpoint, he was momentarily pulled back into the reality of the present; the reality that it was him who walked away from her and that he didn't deserve to still be feeling this way.

The women sang together while Aveline played. As she continued her counterpoint, Fenris focused on the sound of Aveline's surprisingly soft and gentle voice dancing against Hawke's clear and confident one. It drew him into thoughts of the horrifyingly deep emotional counterpoint he was trapped in with Hawke. One of his own making. And he wanted desperately to unmake it.

xxxx

Hawke wanted nothing more than this song to be over. The dark loveliness of their counterpoint was too parallel to the dark loveliness of her dangerous counterpoint with Fenris. She looked over at him while she sang. He was slouched deep in his chair. His green eyes were half hidden as part of him was always hidden from her. She hoped against all that was rational that he knew hiding from her was unnecessary; was breaking both of them, was torturing both of them. But it was a torture of his own making. And she wanted desperately for him to unmake it.

xxxx

When the song ended. Fenris almost cried out in relief. Aveline set down the lute.

"That was wonderful." Donnic said sincerely as he reached for Aveline's hand. She smiled back at him, then she looked around at the empty tankards on the table.

"Donnic and I will get us some more drinks." And the two of them rose, hands still clasped as they walked away.

Fenris and Hawke sat in silence. He wasn't expecting it when she reached her hand out under the table and found his own.

xxxx

If asked later, Hawke would have sworn it was a demon who possessed her into reaching for Fenris's hand. She wanted to snatch it back as soon as she did it, fearful of losing the hard won position in his life she had only a tentative hold on. But he didn't pull away. He turned his hand around in hers and held on as if he was drowning.

xxxx

He was drowning in the sensation of her skin against his again. It was so perfect and so right and though he had thought about it almost constantly for months, the reality of her touch was so much more overwhelming after going so long without it that something inside him snapped.

But it wasn't like it had been before when he snapped and took her that night. When he selfishly took her as he was fighting back memories of anger and hate at the same time he was overcome by desire and need. Before, it was hot and rushed and fever-pitched. It was mindless and wild and then it was broken. But this, this felt different. There was no war in his head, no conflict, no dam breaking. There was just a feeling of certainty as counterpoint settled into harmony.


End file.
